1. What Is Caldera and Why It Matters
Caldera began with a deceptively simple goal: make launching custom Ethereum rollups as easy as clicking a button. This “Rollups-as-a-Service” (RaaS) platform supports frameworks like Arbitrum Orbit, Optimism Stack, zkSync, and more enabling developers to launch highly customized L2 or L3 chains without needing a full infrastructure team.
Fast forward to today, and Caldera isn’t just another RaaS provider it’s building something much more ambitious: the Metalayer, a unifying layer atop all Ethereum rollups that enables seamless cross-chain interaction and pooled liquidity. Think of it as the TCP/IP for rollups, ensuring connectivity across a fragmented ecosystem for both developers and users.
2. Key Pillars of Caldera’s Strategy
Rollup-as-a-Service, Evolved
Caldera already powers over 60 live rollups, including big names like Manta Pacific, RARI Chain, Injective’s inEVM, and Treasure. That’s more than 1.7 million wallets, $800M+ TVL, and 60M+ transactions across the network.
Projects choose Caldera not just for deployment but also for customization, ongoing maintenance, security best practices, and a guaranteed 99.99% uptime SLA. (turn0search1, turn0search8)
The Metalayer: The Internet of Rollups
The Metalayer is a cross-chain connectivity fabric aiming to unify fragmented rollup ecosystems. It delivers low-latency message passing via Hyperlane, and intent routing via partners like Across and Eco. Developers deploy to Caldera chains and get cross-rollup interoperability out of the box no extra code required.
Supporting 75+ chains, 100+ integrations, and boasting $0.001 avg gas fee, 300M+ transactions—all built into Caldera’s pre-wired ecosystem.
The ERA Token: Economic Infrastructure
ERA is the native token, powering fees, staking, and governance. It has a fixed supply of 1 billion and was distributed via a retroactive airdrop and ecosystem incentives.
It underpins Caldera’s tokenomics stack ensuring network participants are secured and aligned via staking, governance, and usage rewards.
3. Momentum That Means Something
Caldera raised $15M in Series A, led by Founders Fund, joined by Dragonfly, Sequoia, Lattice, and others, raising total capital to $25M. This wasn't just hype—it’s a sign of strategic confidence in their Metalayer vision.
They also acquired Hook, the team behind Hook Odyssey, bringing product-level insight from real-world rollup deployment into the Caldera fold.
Partner projects such as Injective’s inEVM and Cronos’ appchains illustrate how diverse clients leverage Caldera’s infrastructure for speed, customization, and scalability.
4. Why This Feels Different
Feature What Makes Caldera Stand Out
Developer-friendly One-click deployment of flexible, high-performance rollups with zero infrastructure overhead.
Unified Architecture Metalayer unlocks liquidity and interoperability, eliminating islanded rollup silos.
Multi-VM Flexibility Supports EVM, SolanaVM, zkSync, Optimism, Arbitrum—without switching platforms.
Real traction & adoption Held $800M+ TVL, processed tens of millions of transactions, backed by serious crypto VCs.
5. Final Thoughts
Caldera is much more than another rollup platform—it's the connective fabric destined to make Ethereum truly modular and composable at scale. With robust infrastructure, serious partner traction, and a blockchain ecosystem approach that values developer and user experience, it’s building the foundations for what could become the internet’s new scaling layer.
Let me know if you’d like to dive deeper into ERA token mechanics, deployment workflows, or start building on Caldera today.
